After getting pushed around by Midlothian’s ball-control offense for almost four quarters, the Aledo defense came up with two big turnovers in the final minutes of the fourth quarter and on the fourth play of overtime in Aledo’s 34-28 District 5-5A Division II game Friday.
Facing a second and 11 from the Aledo 13 yardline in overtime, Midlothian ran an option play to the right. Aledo cornerback DeMarco Roberts knocked the ball loose from the Panther running back and safety Nathan Finger scooped up the loose ball and raced 82 yards to score the winning touchdown.
The win raises the Bearcats’ record to 4-1, 3-0 in district play, while Midlothian falls to 4-2 and 2-2 in 5-5A, with both losses coming in the last play of the game.
The Panthers were less than two minutes away from spoiling Aledo’s homecoming as they milked a 28-21 lead late in the fourth quarter. Facing a fourth and five from the Aledo 27, the Panthers went for it in an attempt to run out the clock.
Midloathian had converted 5-of-5 fourth down attempts up to that point in the game. The Panthers had converted a fourth down attempt in each of their four touchdown drives in the game, but on the sixth attempt, Aledo forced a fumble and linebacker Max Lucas recovered at the 32-yard line to give the Bearcats a chance to tie the game late.
Aledo easily drove down field to tie the game, moving 68 yards in eight plays to tie the game. Aledo quarterback Jake Bishop completed three passes to Jaedon Pellegrino in the drive. Bishop then threw an 11-yard TD pass to Money Parks to send the game into overtime.
Aledo never had the lead in the game until Finger returned the fumble in overtime.
The Panthers won the opening coin toss and took the ball.
It was obvious that they planed to slow the game down with their option offense from the very beginning. The plan was to keep Aledo’s offense off the field, going for every fourth down they faced in the game in order to keep the ball.
Midlothian had three drives in the first half and scored touchdowns on all three drives. Those drives consumed more than 20 minutes of the game’s first 24 minutes.
The Panthers ran 40 plays to Aledo’s 12 plays in the first half.
Their scoring drives were 15 plays, 12 plays and 13 plays. Aledo had scoring drives of three plays, seven plays then had the ball for two plays in the final 20 seconds of the half after Midlothian’s third touchdown.
Midlothian then tried to keep the Aledo offense off the field to start the second half by attempting an on-side kick. However the ball only went eight yards so the Bearcats took possession at the Midlothian 48.
Three plays later, Bishop hit Jo Jo Earle for a 38-yard TD pass to tie the game at 21.
Midlothian then took the lead on a 17-play drive that took nearly the entire third quarter.
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